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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26438662">The Secrets That You Keep</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aepyceros/pseuds/Aepyceros'>Aepyceros</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Angel Orgasms (Supernatural), Angel Soul Bonds (Supernatural), Angel Wings, Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Angelic Grace Bonds (Supernatural), Angelic Grace Kink (Supernatural), Angelic Grace Play (Supernatural), Angelic Grace Sex (Supernatural), Angelic Grace-Powered Orgasms (Supernatural), Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Blue Eyes, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Castiel Makes the First Move (Supernatural), Castiel and Dean Winchester Falling in Love, Castiel to the Rescue (Supernatural), Castiel's Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Castiel's Eyes (Supernatural), Castiel's First Kiss (Supernatural), Castiel's First Time Having Sex (Supernatural), Castiel's Handprint (Supernatural), Castiel's Nickname is Cas (Supernatural), Castiel's Tan Trenchcoat (Supernatural), Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Time Having Sex, Clothed Sex, Comfort/Angst, Dean Winchester Prays to Castiel, Dean Winchester's Soul, Destiel - Freeform, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling Angel Castiel (Supernatural), First Time, Frottage, Grace-Soul Bonding (Supernatural), Green Eyes, Handprint, Handprint Kink (Supernatural), Heaven, Heaven &amp; Hell, Heaven vs Hell, Hell, Hell Trauma, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, My First AO3 Post, My First Castiel/Dean Winchester Fanfiction, My First Work in This Fandom, Post-Hell Dean Winchester, Praying Dean Winchester, Praying to Castiel (Supernatural), Quote: I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition. (Supernatural), Righteous Man (Supernatural), Righteous Man Dean Winchester, Sharing of Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Sleeptalking, Soul Bond, Soul Sex, Soul grace, Soul-Searching, Souls, Top Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:54:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,549</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26438662</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aepyceros/pseuds/Aepyceros</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Once gripped tight, he may never let go.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Secrets That You Keep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Not my boys. All ownership belongs to Kripke and CW. While this works as a standalone, I had originally intended it to be a multi-chapter piece. Second chapter is in the works.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
 <i>The mission HQ is bustling with an offensive ready to be implemented any moment when the news echoes through heaven's corridors: the Righteous Man has broken. The first seal has fallen. The race to the apocalypse has begun.</i>
</p><p>
<i>"You will lead this mission," Raphael informs Castiel when he reports before the archangels. "The game has changed. The fate of this world hangs in the balance. We need the Righteous Man more now than ever. We need our best garrison for the extraction, and YOU will lead the charge."</i>
</p><p>
 <i>The words echo within Castiel’s Grace at the impact of the orders with which he is being entrusted. </i>
</p><p>
 <i>"You should be warned," Raphael continues, "that the risk is high. You and yours may fall before you reach him. You may not succeed in the retrieval. There may not even be enough left of him to salvage. But if miraculously you do locate and successfully extract him, there will likely be long term consequences. To touch a soul raw with torment is to take on that torment. To heal it is to know the wounds and their infliction, in their entirety.” He emphasizes the last three words. “To reach into hell and grasp a being is to claim it with your own Grace.” Raphael's eyes pierce Castiel’s, willing him to understand the full nature of this order. “If you successfully complete this mission, he will forever carry an element of your Grace... and you his taint. You will be revered yet defiled, a child of Heaven and a beast of Earth. The fires of Hell may indeed singe and damage you from without, but to join with and bring forth this soul will brand you from within. Do you understand your orders and all they entail?"</i>
</p><p>
 <i>"I do." And he honestly thinks he does. Raphael knows he will understand soon enough.</i>
</p><p>
 <i>"Then go forth and obey as Heaven commands."</i>
</p><p>
 <i>"I shall."</i>
</p><p>~π~</p><p>At first the prayers are the times of desperation….</p><p>
<i>Cas, get your ass down here. We’re in a bind and could really use some angel mojo.</i>
</p><p>
<i>Cas, Sam’s hurt bad. We really need you, man.</i>
</p><p>
<i>Cas, I’m out of options. </i>
</p><p>Dean calls, Castiel answers. Immediately if there are no pressing matters in Heaven. Gradually, the priority of Heaven’s matters begins to descend inversely proportional to the needs of Dean Winchester. After all, why would the Righteous Man and his concerns not be of great importance? Castiel has been entrusted with the safeguarding of Dean Winchester, of protecting and fighting alongside him, of healing and restoring those he cares about in order to keep him whole and ready for the designs of Heaven when they come. And they will. The Righteous Man will be ready. Castiel will see to it.</p><p>Somewhere amidst the demons, blood, and battles, though, Dean Winchester becomes just Dean. Castiel becomes Cas. </p><p>~π~</p><p>
 <i>Cas...</i>
</p><p>Castiel hears the call like a tug on his trenchcoat. His business in Heaven concluded, he extends his wings and instantaneously materializes in the living room of Bobby Singer.</p><p>“Dean?”</p><p>Dean, sprawled across Bobby’s couch, wakes with a start, jolting up. A gun practically materializing in his right hand, and the alarm on his features immediately morphs into concerned annoyance as his eyes lock with the angel’s.</p><p>“Cas?! What the hell, man? Is everything ok? Where’s the fire?” He cracks his neck, relaxes his right arm, gun hanging loosely at his side.</p><p>Castiel stares back, brows furrowed. “You... You called for me. And I am here.” He holds his palms, presenting the obvious fact of his arrival.</p><p>“Dude, I was sleeping!” Dean growls in annoyance, tucking his firearm back under his coat-turned-makeshift-pillow. “Go annoy some other poor sleeping bastard for a change and let me get some shut eye, man!” He flops back onto the couch and throws his arm across his eyes. “It’s hard enough with Sam and Bobby sawing logs upstairs -” but the rest of Dean’s sentence is lost to the flurry of wings.</p><p>~π~</p><p>Gradually, Dean’s prayers lose the edge of crisis and become a casual call for assistance.</p><p>“-not your personal guardian angel on speed dial…” Sam is saying as Castiel materializes. Sam is leaning his hip against the front passenger quarter panel of the Impala, arms crossed. His as his eyes snap from Dean to Castiel and back to Dean. “I take it back.”</p><p>“Dean.” Castiel’s eyes hone in on Dean’s. “What is it you require?”</p><p>“Um..." Dean scratches the back of his neck, a reaction Castiel has come to associate with one of chagrin. “See, I let this sasquatch here” he jerks his head toward an affronted Sam, “take the wheel for a few miles, and he managed to get us stranded.” He drops his hand away from his neck and affectionately pats the Impala's hood. “I told you, she doesn’t like your crappy music!” he calls back over his shoulder. “What’s he done to you, Baby?”</p><p>“DEAN. I am an <i>Angel. Of. The. Lord.</i> I am not your personal-”</p><p>“I told you to call Triple A, Mr., uh, Dougherty," Sam interrupts, reading the membership card from the wallet "procured" from a bar a couple of nights previous. "None of the A’s of which stand for ‘Angel.’ And I hardly imagine Nickelback put that particular nail on the road.”</p><p>“You don’t know.” Dean spits back, stewing and staring daggers at his brother.</p><p>“ENOUGH.” Castiel reprimands as he his met by two pairs of sulking Winchester eyes. “ I have business to attend to in Heaven. There is still an imminent <i>apocalypse</i> at hand, if you haven’t noticed. Summon your three alphas and hail me if you encounter an actual requirement for Heavenly intervention.” And with that he’s gone.</p><p>"Still not getting the air quotes right," Dean grumbles as he heads to the trunk to dig out the spare tire and jack.

</p><p>~π~</p><p>Then one day, Dean’s prayers become something else….</p><p>
 <i>Cas.</i>
</p><p>Castiel feels the familiar tug, though it doesn’t have the usual tone of urgency to which he’s accustomed. It’s a curious thing, and his presence in Heaven is not explicitly required at this particular instant, so he spares a moment to check in with the elder Winchester. But just before he manifests entirely, he hesitates. Curiosity and caution driving him forward, he arrives unseen to stand before his charge.</p><p>Dean perches on the edge of a sagging mattress in the dingy roadside motel room where Castiel had left him hours before. He slumps with elbows on his knees, shoulders rounded, running fingers through his hair and down his face.</p><p>“...I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fight this anymore.”</p><p>Castiel assumes he is speaking about the apocalypse, but then:</p><p>“This...thing...inside me. These memories. These thoughts. This...<i>MONSTER</i>. Cas, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fight the Devil when it feels like he’s part of me.”</p><p>Castiel lowers himself to the bed opposite Dean. Were he in physical form, their knees would brush. Castiel feels a warmth at the proximity. The offer of a listening ear, a comforting touch, whispered words of sympathy and encouragement: that is the specialty of some angels. But Castiel is a soldier, and why God’s plan has predetermined he be the angel here at this moment to bear witness to Dean’s moment of reflection - <i>confession?</i> - he doesn’t know. But it is he who is here, no other angel, and so he must suffice - Castiel at the side of his charge, the Righteous Man. Castiel briefly considers revealing himself, but he can’t stand the thought of interrupting Dean’s too-infrequent reverie, and so he listens as Dean speaks the prayers he denies Heaven, reserved for Castiel alone. It’s a fact not lost to him, and Castiel refuses to dwell on how his heart swells with fierce pride and possessive tenderness at the revelation.</p><p>
 <i>Pride goeth before the Fall...</i>
</p><p>“Jesus, Cas, what am I supposed to do? I started all of this, regardless of who finishes it. It’s all on me - I get that - and that’s just something I have to live with... But how? How am I supposed to live with this? Knowing I started the freakin’ apocalypse - all on my own - and that my own brother I couldn’t stop finished the job, And now we’re both beyond any hope of redemption, whether we follow Heaven's battle plan or not...” He stands up suddenly to pace the room, Castiel’s eyes trained on him. “So many souls... I can’t even count them all. What kind of man am I? Am I even a man? Because I’m certainly no better than the monsters I put down on the regular. Hell, some of them are better men than me. So <i>tell me</i>,” He shouts to the ceiling. “what do I do?! How can I fight an evil that might as well be me?!”</p><p>Dean sinks to his knees, head hanging, as tears flow silently down his cheeks. He looks at his hands. “So many souls...”</p><p>Castiel rises from the bed and glides to stand over Dean. His charge. His fellow warrior. His friend. He lowers himself to the dingy hotel carpet in answer to Dean’s unintended supplications, the benediction to his obeisance.</p><p>Green eyes look up to meet blue, brimming with pleading and supplication, and only then does Castiel become aware that he has taken corporeal form. <i>Bless me father, for I have sinned.</i> Castiel rests his hand on Dean's head, slides it down his cheek. Blue eyes hold Dean's unguarded gaze, and for once Dean Winchester doesn't flinch away from the intensity - <i>intimacy</i> - of the connection.</p><p><i>Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.</i> Castiel brings his left hand up until he cradles Dean's face between both hands. There is a question in Dean's eyes but under that a longing so profound it would bring Castiel to his knees if he weren't already there. He feels the pull of his own Grace from inside this mortal, feels Dean's torment from inside himself, and for the first time he truly understands Raphael's warning, sees their path and its design, how it has always been leading them here to this moment in this place. Castiel cannot deliver the absolution Dean beseeches, but he can assuage the torment, if only in this moment. </p><p>Eyes locked, Castiel leans in cautiously. He looks a question before answering Dean’s desperation with his own determination. Slowly...slowly he leans in...watching, waiting for Dean to flinch away, expecting a retraction that doesn't come. He holds Dean's gaze as long as he can, stares into the abyss of raw turmoil he has always known was there and beyond to the glorious radiance he knows as well as his own Grace - <i>because it's the same</i>. It is this that is the essence of the righteous man and the existence of which Dean refuses to acknowledge.</p><p>
 <i>Or maybe I was already falling.</i>
</p><p>~π~</p><p>
<i>They descend through darkness and smoke, assaulted by unrelenting heat and the putrid smell of sulfur tinged with burning flesh and layered with every kind of decay. Their awareness is further buffeted by screams and curses enough alone to make lesser beings weep in utter and eternal despair. Suddenly a white light gleams like a beacon to his senses. It is failing and scarred, but still it shines with the goodness and the fragile hope that remains of the Righteous Man. Just then an ambush of demons strike, and the clash of battle join the cacophony of anguished cries. As members of his garrison sacrifice themselves as diversion, Castiel breaks free and flies straight toward his target. Just as the second wave of demonic onslaught join the fray, outnumbering the angels ten to one in hopeless odds, Castiel closes his fingers around that precious, flickering glow....</i>
</p><p>~π~</p><p>He stares again into that glow until he is inches away before breaking eye contact and closing the final distance. When their lips meet, it is chaste. Castiel expects Dean to jerk away, maybe punch him for his presumption, but he instead stills, even calms. At first Castiel senses the prickle of fear, feels it himself, knowing at any moment Dean is going to panic and slam his trademark Dean-Winchester-Walls into place, reject this unconventional benediction...whether because of the vessel that bestows it or because of Dean’s perceived inadequacy of himself. He feels the moment the current shifts, the relief and release that flood through Dean as he succumbs, washing over Castiel as gratitude...and something more.</p><p>
 <i>Ah.</i>
</p><p>Castiel recognizes the tinge of lust because he feels its echo, realizes he has felt it for a long time but scarce dared give it thought or name. He has always wanted: wanted to rescue Dean, wanted to restore Dean, wanted to protect Dean - <i>wanted Dean.</i> And - oh! - how he wants. He has marked Dean, and now he wants to claim him. </p><p>He feels something uncoiling inside him: jealously. Jealously he didn't know that he carried, jealousy that this man was meant for another to inhabit, jealousy that this vessel was meant for Castiel's kin. </p><p>Dean must feel the flare of Castiel's fierce possessiveness reverberate within himself because he's the one to step beyond the initial chasteness. He deepens the contact, parts his lips. Castiel instinctively follows in kind, and then Dean's tongue is pushing past his lips, exploring, possessing, demanding, <i>claiming</i>, a frantic desperation seeping into the shelter they're making of each other's mouths. </p><p>Dean needs the blessing from Castiel’s lips, but he was never one for words, his native tongue rooted in the physical, his vocabulary honed in violence...and in sex. </p><p>Castiel feels Dean's soul-deep ache for absolution. Or maybe it's just the desperate need for someone to fathom the depths of corruption within his soul and embrace all of him despite what he's done and become. Castiel doesn't need to read Dean’s mind to know what toils it; as the one who rebuilt him body and soul, he <i>knows</i> Dean. He is the only being who could possibly meet Dean's need. He doesn't have the power to redeem, merely to restore, but Heaven’s redemption isn't what Dean craves. <i>Heaven can take it's redemption and shove it up it's tight ass for all I care.</i> Castiel restored Dean Winchester; now he alone can redeem him.</p><p>Dean is beautiful, inside and out, in all the ways Castiel made him new and all the ways that are just <i>Dean</i>. But Dean would never accept his words, and so Castiel uses lips and tongue and hands to speak in other ways:</p><p>Lips pressed tighter: <i>I see all of you.</i></p><p>Tongue stroking tongue: <i>I receive all of you you.</i></p><p>Breaths shared between them: <i>You are not beyond redemption.</i></p><p>Hands cradling jaw: <i>I find you worthy.</i></p><p>Castiel demonstrates Dean’s worth as he kneels before him on equal ground, fallen man and falling angel, warriors of Heaven and of Earth, bound as grace and soul together welded in the fires of hell, the powers of Heaven, the crucible of the coming Armageddon. </p><p>Dean worships Castiel with flesh, the only way he knows how, breathes him in like a man drowning. Castiel feels the white hot flare of soul tinted with the cool cast of his own Grace. It's intoxicating. He irresistibly reaches toward the light like a man possessed. His fingers brush the corona of all that brightness, hot and freezing, electric and bliss all-consuming. He wants - <i>needs</i>- to go deeper, feel more. Dean gasps, but his lips don't break contact as they continue to plunder at Castiel's mouth. Castiel reaches blindly toward the light and doesn't even realize he's got his hand halfway through Dean's sternum until Dean grabs his elbow and forces him in to the wrist and deeper. The way that soul curls in tendrils around and through his hand is almost more than Castiel can bear and not enough all at the same time. The glow becomes blinding in Castiel's mind’s eye, hot enough to scorch, but cool as balm, spilling out around his wrist and from between Dean’s ribs. Castiel curls his fingers, stroking, and Dean moans rattling something deep in Castiel, reverberating through his limbs, his chest, and lower, and <i>oh</i>. Dean’s body should be in agony, but it instead responds with euphoria and...<i>arousal</i>.</p><p>Castiel jerks his hand back breaking Dean's grip at his elbow, eyes flying open. Dean slumps forward and groans at the sudden loss of contact. Castiel scrambles to his feet, readies his wings to flee, but then Dean lunges at him, tangles his hands in trench coat lapels and drives the angel's vessel back into the nearest wall. Sheetrock fractures, splintering outward and framing Castiel in a mockery of crumpled wings. When Castiel raises his hands to Dean’s shoulders, he intends to gain leverage, to hold Dean back. But the contact instantly boils into a claim of possession. Dean shivers. Castiel feels the old mark of his hand burn hot under Dean’s layers, a warmth that shoots through both their bodies and settles low as a throbbing demand.</p><p>Dean surges forward, slots their mouths together - hips, erections follow. Grace and soul flare brighter, burn hotter, control stripped away. Relentless and desperate, Dean is force of nature - taking, demanding, giving, needing, <i>MORE</i>. His aggression a tsunami of desperate supplication, he ruts against Castiel: <i>Take all of me and let it be enough.</i> Castiel’s reply is a strangled moan: <i>You are mine, and I will have you. You alone are enough. Always and forever.</i></p><p>Dean really starts to move then, slams his palms on the wall to bracket Castiel's head. Sheetrock crumbles like the boundaries between them. The roll of his hips, the ripple of his body, the swell and slide of hardened cocks, even through too many layers of fabric, carries them both away in a frenzy of giving and claiming, demanding and possessing.</p><p>Castiel realizes distantly that while he may have remade Dean in every detail, knows this body inside and out, it's Dean who is the master of its use. He presents himself an offering in the only way he knows how as he worships Castiel's borrowed flesh with his own. Castiel is drowning in Dean Winchester, swept away, and suddenly Castiel is soaring, but he doesn't remember taking flight. He throws his head back, slams it against the abused wall. Dean's teeth are scraping at his neck, hips grinding harder, and it's too much. A glow fills the room, groans echo from the walls and rattle in their bones as they tumble together over a precipice he didn't even know they’d reached.</p><p><i>Maybe we've always been here,</i> one mind says to another and hears it's echo.</p><p>Castiel thought he knew everything Heaven had to offer, but he was wrong, so very, very wrong.</p><p>~π~</p><p>
 <i>The moment Castiel touches the shattered soul, it's light surges, his own Grace flaring exponentially at the contact, the resultant output of energy eclipsing that of a supernova, rivaling that of an archangel. Castiel grips the soul tight, it's light beyond blinding, beyond burning. He feels it searing into him. He senses his own Grace surging into the soul’s nebulous, a nebulous that's flowing into and around him, their individual light intertwining and binding and growing by orders of magnitude. He tears his eyes away from the swirling mass of soul and Grace, looks past their nebula to the ring of demons surrounding them, frozen like time has stopped, but no, they're screaming. Their eyes are burning pits, every mouth like the maw of an abyss. With eyes blown luminescent with power, he sees their skin smoke and melt under his gaze. The angels have fallen back in horrified amazement, but even they disintegrate to ash, unable to stand at ground zero where Grace and soul become as one. The smoke of demons and ash of angels swirl in orbit around the brightness of a thousands suns where a soldier of Heaven and a Righteous Man converge. It becomes a howling vortex that seals them away from the rest of Creation. Castiel tightens his grip at the center of the light and feels a growing solidity. He shoves more of his grave into the center of that spark, and flesh and bone knit together, materialized from nothing but the magnitude of energy radiating from their connection. </i>
</p><p><i>The mass in his hand becomes bone, becomes muscle, becomes shoulder. He grips tighter, pulling the Man forth from the heart of the inferno as a brother, as an equal. Side by side, they rocket upward with their combined velocity. Every level of Hell gives way like tattered parchment until they collide with Earth in a blast that fells trees and structures for miles and melts the very ground itself.</i> </p><p>~π~</p><p>One minute Dean has arms and mouth full of angel, and the next he's panting against a wall, alone in a darkened room with blue and gold sparks falling all around. He leans his back against the torn and faded paisley wallpaper and slides boneless to floor. He considers the cooling mess of his jeans and decides maybe he should pray more often. </p><p>He pointedly doesn't think about repercussions as he wipes himself down with his crumpled t-shirt (<i>crumbled by Castiel's hands as he came</i>), climbs into bed, and drifts into post-orgasmic oblivion.</p>
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